quote:

Originally posted by INTREPID SAFARIS:
Guys I am white I live in Africa was born here my family's been here for 200 plus years I AM AFRICAN and don't want to be called anything else, It is very upsetting when the politicians use the word African as A political tool.

Afrikaans is what we speak and in most cases that's how we communicate with our trackers and staff. In our area almost most of them speaks it and very little English.

My family arrived in the 1790's in South Africa...

So guess that makes me an African as well.

I agree with your sentiment on politicians...

I recall about 20 years ago a Kenyan friend and I were hunting I the Maasai Steppe and met a French PH.

This guy could only speak French - his driver (a Chagga) was interpreting for him - and he could speak French, Kiswahili, English, Kimaasai and obviously Kichagga.

The driver was speaking to my mate in Kiswahili and though I was only getting about 30% of the conversation (my Swahili's not that good and they were speaking very fast) he was ripping the s**t out of his "master".

I Africa you really need one of I three (??) lingua france - Kiswahili, Chilapalapa (kitchen Zulu) - and Africaans. But not French - at least in East/Southern Africa.

As a Norwegian our language is of the Germanic family.
We also have quite a few words common with Dutch, Scottish and English.
Mostly due to our long maritime tradition, but also from our traveling and raiding forfathers, the Vikings.

Both in South Africa and Namibia I could grip the meaning of scentences and single words in Afrikaans as many words had the same meaning as in Norwegian.

I love hearing Afrikaans spoken, but I love hearing the South African accent in English even more.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
I love hearing Afrikaans spoken, but I love hearing the South African accent in English even more.

German fraulein is the best! Tried to get my colonoscopy nurse to tutor my beloved -- we have lots of German to us (but the Dutch seems to win out in me).

Cheers lekker!

"It is rude and unprofessional for a PH to speak afrikaans in front of the clients."

+ 1, and the other similar posts too.
If I speak Afrikaans to a tracker in front of the client, or the tracker speaks to me, I then immediately give the client a loose translation.
Sometimes the people skills of the profession let us down.

Ought we not to be equally "offended" when tracker and PH do their work in Xhosa/Setswana/whatever too? What Karoo does is fine by me, and I'd expect to feel left out were the conversation in French while hunting West Africa, German in Namibia, Navajo after elk on reservation hunts, etc. Just clue me in to what's going on and I'm happy. (But of course I'm trying to have fun at all times anyway.)

quote:

Originally posted by Capt. Purvis:
The one thing that I hate most about going to Africa is not being able to understand Afrikaans. I understand that we are in their country and have to adapt to their culture.

I have always been somewhat good at picking up foreign languages but I am having some difficulty with Afrikaans. There is no Rosetta Stone for Afrikaans or any other compatible software. I would greatly appreciate if any of you can recommend a study program.
Regards

Clark

Although this website is not a study program, it is a good resource to begin your language research.

The link below will take you to the Afrikaans page. Scroll to the bottom to see all the links.

BTW, there are similar pages for Shona, Swahili, Ndebele, etc, etc.

Omniglot

To save you some time, here is another link to the Afrikaans courses and dictionaries page in their on-line book store.

Afrikaans study programs

Hope this helps jumpstart your linguistic journey.

BTW, I found this excellent advice while reading reviews on Amazon comparing Teach Yourself Afrikaans with Colloquial Afrikaans.

This course is sufficient and well worth the money put toward it. If I were to give my own personal advice to a perspective buyer, though, it'd be to purchase the "Colloquial Afrikaans" course prior to moving on to this one. "Teach Yourself Afrikaans" in some respects is more exhaustive in terms of vocabulary, but the "Colloquial Afrikaans" course is easier to follow and is overall a better starting point for people just beginning studies in the language.


Sounds like a good idea would be pairing Colloquial Afrikaans with a comprehensive English/Afrikaans dictionary.

Later, you could follow up with Teach Yourself Afrikaans to increase your vocabulary.

I also found some useful advice about the Hippocrene vs. the Reader's Digest Afrikaans dictionaries.


I got this dictionary once I found that there were several words missing from the glossaries in the Teach Yourself Afrikaans and Colloquial Afrikaans courses. It is handy in size, but over time I have found many words missing, e.g. "naarstig" (diligent). I bought a collection of stories in simple Afrikaans and found at least one word on each page that wasn't in this dictionary. If you're serious about learning Afrikaans, you'll need a better dictionary. I recommend the Reader's Digest one - not the multilingual book, but the massive one that goes for about $40 if you can find it. It has much better notes on usage. In the end, I go to the Hippocrene first because it's smaller and faster to use, but about 1 out of 5 times I have to consult the Reader's Digest dictionary because the word isn't in the Hippocrene.

Reader's Digest Afrikaans dictionary

Well, I speak Afrikaans - married to an Afrikaans woman, and I have never used "naarstig" in my life.

If you do want to learn, just being able to string a sentence together and gather the gist of a conversation should be good enough. The PH and the tracker aren't the equivalent of Oxford Dons debating philosophy.

So what is the Afrikaans word for "diligent"?

Heck, I don't even use "diligent" in English much, but "ywerig" is a fair approximation.

Just saying that if anyone wants to learn enough to get by on a hunting trip, they really don't need that level of learning. If they want to lecture an Afrikaans I literature class, well maybe.

What a hunter needs is
"wat is dit?"
"hoe ver is dit?"
"hoe groot is dit?"
"mag ek skiet?"
"Kan ek nog 'n spook en diesel kry asseblief?"
"Hoe laat kom die kos aan?"

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
Would studying Dutch be a gateway?

Yes, Dutch is very much like Afrikaans. My ancestors are Dutch so I grew up hearing it. Now I can understand Afrikaans quite well when there.

quote:

Originally posted by Terry Blauwkamp:

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
Would studying Dutch be a gateway?

Yes, Dutch is very much like Afrikaans. My ancestors are Dutch so I grew up hearing it. Now I can understand Afrikaans quite well when there.

Terry, not to start a shitfight, since you have been there, done that.

I think the best European approximation to Afrikaans is probably Flemish.

I had to apply for a visa to visit the Benelux countries a few years ago (as you know, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg), and just for shits and grins I answered all the questions in Flemish. It was like reading Afrikaans.

Admittedly the accent is totally different, like Afrikaans with a French accent, but the structure is so close.

Anyway, as someone whose family language from 1987 to 2005 was Afrikaans, I am pleased that there is so much interest in the language.

As an aside, if you can master the gutterals properly, "chicks dig it".

Afrikaans is widely spoken in Namibia as well as Botswana; and quite a lot of (white) Zimbabweans speak it as well. I once came across an old man in Angola who spoke it as his preferred language. Apparently one of the original trekkers hated the English so much he did not stop until he got to Angola.

There were two official languages in RSA in the old days .. English and Afrikaans. But Afrikaans was more official than English as the governing party was staffed by Afrikaners and many of them detested the English and their language. So in the Army, Afrikaans was spoken almost exclusively. In parastatals like the Airlines and Railways ditto. A lot of black South Africans were instructed in Afrikaans in the schools ... this was a matter of political ambition on the part of the Nationalist government as well as a practial necessity in those times, with most government employees being Afrikaans speakers. The ANC used this to their advantage during the revolution, urging children to reject being taught in this medium as it was "the language of the oppressor" ... this emotion caught on and eventually led to the schools being burned down. Which of course hurt the students most but there is no logic in ideology.

Bottom line it's a relatively simple language (the Dutch refer to it as a language that never grew up), not that hard to learn but it's very hard to speak it well as it does not come naturally to an English speaker.

PM sent to Russ Gould.

Best way to learn is to get a South African girlfriend.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
Bottom line it's a relatively simple language (the Dutch refer to it as a language that never grew up),

I speak Dutch , Flemish and Afrikaans and know the differences well. yep , the Dutch would say something like that ... Lol

quote:

Originally posted by accipiter1:
Best way to learn is to get a South African girlfriend.

Charlize Teron style??? oooooohhhhhhy essssss

ok google translator has some issue in translating these two phrases:

Kan ek nog 'n spook en diesel kry asseblief?

I have a ghost and get over diesel?

Hoe laat kom die kos aan?

How to come to the food?

ok for the second maybe is easier, but the first???

"Spook en diesel"refers to an alcoholic drink. It consists of a spirit made of sugar cane mixed with coke. Similar to Vodka. Also known as a "double cane and coke"
The second question was "what time will the food arrive?"

Steve, Charlise is a PETA poster girl, and from her family history has far too much baggage to be fun for any time. Look up the "Hot-Crazy Paradigm" on Youtube - I reckon she probably hits the Crazy axis at about 9, maybe 7.5 on a good day.

And, wow, Google translate really screwed those up - I'm not too surprised at the "Spook and Diesel" one, because the "Spook and Diesel" is fairly slangy, but the other one is a dead standard query as you'd probably hear in any household at about dinner time.

The other one may be paraphrased as:
Wanneer eet ons?
Hoe laat eet ons?

Well done to Expat - you win a prize of immense value - you are the Guardian of the Internets for today. Enjoy.

quote:

Originally posted by Arild Iversen:
As a Norwegian our language is of the Germanic family.
We also have quite a few words common with Dutch, Scottish and English.
Mostly due to our long maritime tradition, but also from our traveling and raiding forfathers, the Vikings.

Both in South Africa and Namibia I could grip the meaning of scentences and single words in Afrikaans as many words had the same meaning as in Norwegian.

I have also found some similarities between Norwegian and Afrikaans. After a couple of trips to Limpopo and some studying at home, I can understand most of the normal conversation by the lokals. Non the less, I have problems with pronounsing many of the more guteral sounds in Afrikaans.
For my studying, this online language-course has been of great help:

http://www.goethe-verlag.com/b.../EM/EMAF/EMAF002.HTM

quote:

Originally posted by Jan Dumon:

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
Bottom line it's a relatively simple language (the Dutch refer to it as a language that never grew up),

I speak Dutch , Flemish and Afrikaans and know the differences well. yep , the Dutch would say something like that ... Lol

After the Second World War South Africa had quite an influx of Dutch families when Europe was still in ruin. Strangely enough many of these families progressed to using English as home language rather than Afrikaans. Probably something to do with the kitchen language that never grew up.

Regarding the Scandinavian languages I watched The Girl That Played with Fire Trilogy in Swedish with subscripts and could recognise a lot of words in Swedish that obviously shares the same origin as Afrikaans in the dim past.

quote:

Originally posted by Jan Dumon:

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
Bottom line it's a relatively simple language (the Dutch refer to it as a language that never grew up),

I speak Dutch , Flemish and Afrikaans and know the differences well. yep , the Dutch would say something like that ... Lol

"There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch!"